


Like a Child

by GallicGalaxy



Category: The Walking Dead (Comics)
Genre: Carl Grimes cries, I'll tag this better later, Nightmares, but i probably won't, descriptions of nightmares about implied rape is weird to tag, mentions of rape/non-con, rape/non-con nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:22:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10803543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallicGalaxy/pseuds/GallicGalaxy
Summary: In which Carl searches for comfort.





	Like a Child

**Author's Note:**

> I have like 7 fics I'm working on and I work on none of them, instead I write...this?  
> In which Carl has a very vivid nightmare and Negan tries to comfort him, it could be interpreted as kinda Carl/Negan but that wasn't the way I was originally trying to lean it, I guess it depends on who's interpreting it haha  
> You may be asking why Negan was hanging out on Rick's couch in the first place, and how many times Negan had fallen asleep on Rick's couch in the past. Listen I don't know do you think I wrote this or something  
> I just realized the title and description of this make it sound really weird....i'm uploading late again I'll edit these notes and tags later

It was darkness. Warmth. Not a comforting warmth, a warmth that prompts a desire for closeness, a warmth which envelopes with benevolence and welcoming affection. No, it was a suffocating warmth which bears down on the bones and chokes without killing. And scratch, scratch, _scratch_ , like a cat clawing at the underside of a door or a heavy rake digging its hard nails into the earth.

Furrows in his flesh and bruises under his skin, and heat everywhere, and sadistic whispers. Struggling like a fish in a net; his hands and feet might as well have been pinned to the solid ground, as vain as all his resistance was. Warmth and wetness like a living thing sliding around in the emptiness of his hollow, trying to dig through his eye socket and into his brain. He kicked, with his slender legs, with nails in his thighs. Someone who smelled like the soft, caking mouths of the undead was mostly atop him, writhing into place while they chuffed and almost _laughed._

He tried to speak, to scream, despite the hands on his face and the slithering tongue exploring flesh it should not have explored. Nobody answered.

And in the violence, the chaos of warmth and wetness and limbs and digging fingernails, Carl was shot back into the real world. The warmth was gone, the other hateful shivering bodies were gone, and Carl was alone in his bed, clutching his sheets with ferocity.

But, the fear, the cold bleeding terror, was not gone. Carl, heart pounding with panic it did not realize was unnecessary, sprinted from his room as lightly as he could. Searching for the only person, the only presence his mind thought could serve to remedy the cruelty of his own mind. He paused once he got downstairs, however, realizing that there was indeed a person in his presence, and it was not the one he was seeking.

“Carl? You alright, kid?”

That loathsome voice stung Carl's overexcited nerves. He subtly angled his eye away from the owner of said voice – _Negan_ , still filling Carl with unequaled spite.

“Where's Dad?” Was what he asked, guarding the trembling fear in his voice, hoping that the darkness would keep Negan from noticing that he was starting to shake.

“Your dad's still out at his meeting.” Negan explained, gently and almost _patronizingly_ , like he was addressing a child. “Andrea left early, though. She's asleep.”

“I don't... _want_ her.” Carl whined, sounding pitifully childish. To match Negan talking to him like a little kid, he supposed. “I just want...dad.” He mumbled, leaning slightly against the wall, knees almost knocking together.

“Is something wrong?” As if Negan had any right to ask that. As if he had any right to talk to Carl like he was a child.

“I-It's nothing.” Carl stammered, still struggling not to shake. “I j-just had a n-nightmare.” A nightmare which had shaken him to his core and made him almost fear for his life upon waking. He didn't usually get that scared by nightmares anymore – not scared enough to sprint downstairs looking desperately for his father. Like a _child_.

“What about?”

Carl didn't want to answer him. But he did.

“The Whisperers...” He choked. That wasn't a lie; it just wasn't the entire truth.

“Well, I know you still don't like me, but...” Negan began. Carl knew very well what he was about to offer. “You can talk to me if you need to, Carl.”

They'd talked before. Downstairs, quietly, through a crude wall of iron and animosity. About all manner of things.

Carl gasped and shivered, trying not to sob, his weak body betraying him. Like a child's would. And, within moments, he was on the couch, his arms wrapped around Negan and his face buried into Negan's neck. His eye betrayed him and he cried plentiful hot saline tears. He stifled his miserable sobbing, but his body throbbed weakly regardless of the repression of the sound. Negan's strong arms came around him, pulling Carl closer to his chest. That was comforting warmth, soft and nonrestrictive, unjudging of his tears and his childish shivering.

“Shh, shh...” Negan hummed, running his hand over Carl's hair so gently it almost seemed as though he was afraid he'd hurt the boy by doing so. “It's alright. It's okay.”

Lori used to do that, in almost the same way. When Carl was too scared to do anything but cry, his mother would hold him close and whisper the same, _“Shh, shh. It's okay. It's alright, baby.”_ It was distinct to him because his father comforted differently, and Andrea comforted differently. He'd call Andrea  _Mom_ and think nothing of it and smile at her when he saw her – but really, he very rarely found himself wanting to go to her for affection or comfort. With her it was always twisted, tilted, a distorted and imperfect portrayal of comfort, which he loathed to think repulsed him more than anything.

Abraham had held him once. Negan's strong arms almost felt like his had, when Carl was peering out from the crook of Abraham's arm and at a scene of miserable evisceration unfolding before him. He'd been cradled by the warmth of Abraham's chest – comforting warmth.

But as Negan sat there, with Carl in his arms, feeling the gentle wetness of the boy's tears as they rolled onto the skin of his neck, he was thinking very differently. He realized he missed _kids_ ; he hadn't had children, but he missed kids – kids around Carl's age, back when they'd been perfectly careless and reckless creatures. Of course, he'd never held any of them in his arms like this or had them cry into the crux of his neck, but he missed that sort of presence.

Negan ran his hand over Carl's hair again, a bit less timidly this time, and continued murmuring quiet, calming words.

“Shh, it's okay. It's okay. You're safe.”

Then, bravely, he leaned his head down and brushed his lips against Carl's forehead. He wouldn't have called it a _kiss;_ it was silent, no more than a brief, almost unnoticeable graze.

When he did that, Carl lifted his head and stared at him – first curiously, then with an expression that warped into what looked like spite or hatred.

Because Negan _wasn't_ like his mother, who had cradled him in her soft arms years and years ago. He wasn't Lori and he wasn't Abraham, and he and all the men who'd listened to him were the reason Abraham was dead. Abraham who had held his body still on that night, that awful night that could've been the _worst_ night.

A worst night of suffocating warmth and long nails raking and hooking and pain like he'd never felt and the horrible breath of a yellow-toothed stranger beating against his face.

A worst nightmare.

Carl, twisting his lips in anger, angrily shoved his palms against Negan's chest and lurched away from him. He folded himself back up on the other side of the couch, body still heaving with sobs, and looked away from Negan. That warmth was not comforting to him anymore. It was constraining and frightening; it was threatening his worst nightmare.

“Carl...?” Negan's voice sought after him. Carl quivered and tried to sound like he wasn't crying or scared anymore. He hated crying and he hated being scared. “Why don't you tell me what your nightmare was about?” Negan asked him very softly, almost lovingly, as if he cared.

“I told you.” Carl growled. Even his angered snarl sounded weak and desperate. Like a child.

“You didn't tell me all of it.” Negan countered, still trying to sound gentle. Carl shivered.

He didn't want to tell him about it. He didn't need to know. But Carl heard himself utter a few exceptionally high-pitched sobs and felt fresh tears boiling in his eye.

“Carl, come on, kid...” Negan murmured concernedly. “At least let me go get your dad or something.” He offered.

Carl didn't want to pull himself back into Negan's arms, into his comforting warmth. But he felt pathetically alone and residually scared and maybe still scared of something _real_ , and so he drew himself back across Negan and embraced him tightly, shaking and sniffling.

With softly shaking lips and empty, leaping breaths, Carl stammered out nearly meaningless whimpers of explanation, trying to tell the story of his violent nightmare.

He squeaked out _touched me_ and _hurt me_ and _clawing at my skin_ and _licked my face, licked my eye_ and _twisted my arms_ and _on top of me, I think it was a woman_ , and _smelled like walkers_ and plenty of other things that were vaguely connected at best. Negan petted his hair and interspersed Carl's nonsensical storytelling with _shh, shh_ and _it's okay, let it all out_ , and _no-one's gonna hurt you_.

And, “Shit, I'm sorry, kid. That's a pretty fucked-up dream.”

Carl knew where it had come from. He knew all the places his twisted subconscious had drawn from to form that horrid nightmare. Not one of them was, in particular, _Negan_ , who was actively holding him cautiously but affectionately.

Eventually, eventually Carl's tears dried and tightened his eye, and his breath steadied and he was just lying there against Negan's chest. Negan asked him, “You alright, Carl?”, and Carl felt Negan's breath seeping through his hair.

“I'm okay.” Carl answered. That wasn't a lie either. It just wasn't the entire truth.

And then, through the quiet darkness, there was a very soft knock on the front door. Carl heard the door open, but he didn't lift his head from Negan's chest.

“Negan?”

The voice was not even calling his name, but Carl felt a surge of eager, almost tearful joy race through his heart. He lifted himself from Negan and unfolded his slender legs to the ground, racing around the side of the couch and practically bounding forward at the chance to embrace his father. The moment Carl felt the familiarity of his smell and the warmth of his body, arms wrapped as fully around Rick as they could be, he smiled crudely and shut his eye.

“Carl? What are you doing awake?” Rick asked him, with a mixture of concern and uncertain amusement at how abruptly his son had run to his arms. Rick cast a momentary glance over at Negan, his eyes sharp and narrowed with a myriad of protective speculations. Carl felt his father shift and looked up, relaxing his embrace.

He could tell that Rick was staring over him. It wasn't the first time he'd done that, and it likely wouldn't be the last. Rick was looking at Negan, judging him defensively, trying to figure out how best to bare his teeth in a relatively cautious way.

“I just had a nightmare, that's all.” Carl gave him his belated answer. For some reason, he was seeking to abate his father's outward hostility towards Negan.

“If you got that scared, why didn't you wake up your mother?” Rick asked concernedly, shuffling forward a little as Carl shut the door behind him.

He didn't want to tell him why he really hadn't, why he never really wanted to and he only accepted her comfort curtly and never sought it out. “It's okay, Dad.” He insisted. Rick softened his harshness, looking back at his son and then eyeing Negan warily once more.

“And you don't have anything to say about this?” He questioned, though he managed to put on an almost joking tone rather than displaying direct hostility.

“I figured you'd trust the kid more than you'd trust me.” Negan replied. There was a hint of a chuckle behind his voice. Rick grunted, almost affirmatively, but didn't respond any other way.

“Sorry I got back so late.” He announced. “There was...a lot to discuss. I should've been in bed by the time Andrea left.” He remarked, still retaining a bit of lightheartedness. With a shining glance, he ruffled Carl's hair fondly and instructed, “And you should get back to bed, too.”

“And I suppose I should leave now that you're back.” Negan yawned in mock sadness. “I'm assuming you probably don't want me to fall asleep on your couch again.”

“I wish I cared enough.” Rick sighed, starting to make his way off to his and Andrea's bedroom. He paused and glanced back and his son with a weak, fragile smile. Carl slid back up to him as if he'd been beckoned. Rick leaned his head down and softly kissed Carl's forehead. “Good dreams, right?” He said lowly.

“Yeah. Good dreams.” Carl repeated, embracing his father once more before he left for his own room upstairs.

Carl settled back into his bed, beneath a familiar blanket, but still he felt alone. Maybe still afraid. He laid there sleepless for an unquantified amount of time, shifting uneasily, until eventually he gave up. Heart fluttering, he pulled his blanket off his bed and wrapped it loosely over himself, rising from the bed and making his way noiselessly downstairs.

He picked his way back towards the couch as if he was trying not to disturb a wild animal. He was near that spot off the edge of the couch that he'd been envisioning since before he even rose from his bed. There was Negan, lying on his side, tall figure stretched out across the couch. However, as Carl approached him, he turned to look at the boy with the deliberate motions of someone who was most definitely awake.

Unsurprising.

“Carl, I know you're there.” Negan chuckled quietly. He paused for a moment, smirking at Carl's wide-eyed expression. “Well, come on. You can have the couch. I'll sleep on the floor.”

Carl tried not to smile a bit. He took his place on the couch, his body settling into the broad warmth Negan's body had left for him and pulling his blanket over himself. Negan was there at the front of the couch, settling into a new position on the floor.

After a while, comforting himself with the warmth of his own body (and residual warmth from Negan's) and the presence of Negan off the edge of the couch, Carl stealthily peeled his blanket off of himself and draped it over Negan's body. He saw Negan's side ripple as he chuckled. He was still awake.

Negan pulled the blanket over himself, thankful that his face was turned away from Carl. He was smiling, but there were nearly tears at the corners of his eyes.

Strangely enough, he'd missed almost crying. He hadn't really realized it until he'd found himself in that state more often.

This blanket wasn't his; it smelled like teenager (an unexpectedly distinct scent) and left a few silky dark hairs on his shirt, but he still gripped it between his fingers as though it was the most important item in the world to him.

A silent gesture of Carl's affection, or at the very least his appreciation. Maybe the boy didn't _hate_ him, not as much as he tried to.

That was a comforting thought.

 


End file.
